Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams said yesterday that while T&T's anti-money laundering infrastructure meets the minimum standards set by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the most important aspect of the fight against laundered money is the implementation of proper procedures.
"It's not the legislation or the regulations, it is the implementation and the enforcement. You can only get the enforcement if you have established a culture of compliance," Williams said yesterday, just after the official launch of the new $50 note. Williams said there was a need to ensure that all foreign affiliates of local banks have arrangements in place that can stand scrutiny and that if the foreign affiliate is in a jurisdiction which has lower anti-money laundering standards than T&T, that the higher standards should be in place.
Meanwhile, a Cuban-American businessman is due to appear in a Miami court tomorrow to face charges related to allegations that he defrauded the US national health insurance programme of millions of dollars and that some of that money ended up in 11 accounts in the Cuban subsidiary of Republic Bank.
On Monday, US prosecutors filed a motion accusing Oscar Sanchez, a 46-year-old Cuban-born US citizen of conspiring to send proceeds from the alleged Medicare fraud to shell companies in Canada, then to a Republic Bank branch in Trinidad and ultimately to a Republic Bank branch in Cuba.
Sanchez was ordered to be held in custody pending the formal reading of charges, which is scheduled for today. Sanchez could face 13 years if he is convicted, the Associated Press newswire reported yesterday. The AP quoted a Cuban official as saying yesterday that the country has strict controls to avoid money laundering and works closely with banks to detect and deter fraudulent transactions, responding to allegations by US prosecutors that millions of dollars defrauded from Medicare were routed to the island's financial system.
"Foreign commercial banks that maintain accounts in Cuban banks are obliged to operate in strict compliance with international and Cuban rules and must guarantee the reliability of their transactions and the correct use of their accounts," according to the statement from Johana Tablada, deputy director for US affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, emailed to the AP.
The case against Sanchez is part of a broader investigation of an alleged Medicare scam involving 70 Florida companies and more than US$70 million of fraudulent billings. Much of the money was subsequently sent abroad, though this is the first example where proceeds are alleged to have ended up in Cuba.